The pension plan is currently broken, funded at only 53%. In the past 15 years, the employer contribution rate has grown from 3.2% to 18.2%, a 600 percent increase.

The current pension plan uses a Permanent Benefit Increase (PBI), which experts have concluded has a systemic flaw, that decreases funding, threatening its solvency. SB 1442 and its accompanying constitutional amendment (SCR 1023) replaces the broken PBI with a predictable, pre-funded Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). This adjustment follows inflation with a 2% cap and provides certainty of retirees.